


Disenchanted

by lilithtorch2



Series: CA2TWS Speculations [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Spoilers, Angst, Character Study, Family, Gen, Magical Place, Reflection, Some parts might not be canon, What actually happened in Tahiti?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-12
Updated: 2014-01-12
Packaged: 2018-01-08 12:32:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1132687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilithtorch2/pseuds/lilithtorch2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Agent Phil Coulson reflects on the discovery that Tahiti....well. And considers who he should really be living and fighting for instead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Disenchanted

**Author's Note:**

> Read with My Chemical Romance-Disenchanted
> 
> Part of the series mainly because of the comments in this story

_“For some reason Agent Coulson, you’re different. Now why is that?”_

This wasn’t the first time that Agent Phil Coulson had heard that. He didn’t think much of it the first time he was told. Apparently he’d been, what, more ruthless in the past? Whatever that meant. Seemed like people who’d been close to him noticed that he had changed, too, even if they couldn’t pinpoint how.

Phil Coulson and Mike Peterson had gone to meet with Centipede so that Mike could give himself up in exchange for his son. Or so he said. Instead, Centipede took Phil with them because, according to Raina, the woman in the flower dress, “In exchange for his son, we asked Mike to deliver you.” He wasn't mad at Mike; there was nothing anyone could have done in that situation.

And then Mike died trying to save him. What would become of his boy now? How could Centipede do that to both father and son? So what if Mike had wanted to be a hero; this wasn’t how it was supposed to go down!

_“And you’re clinging to the one memory you have: fond memories of your recovery.”_

Memories; that was all people had about themselves. Was Raina suggesting through her sarcastic tone that he'd been lied to? If those memories were fake, then what else did he have? Who was he without them, then? He had to believe that Raina was conning him. She was trying to get him to betray S.H.I.E.L.D. so that she could find out what intel he had and find out how he was resurrected. She was right; those gaps in his memory kept him up at night. He wanted answers but no one would give him any. Regardless, this woman would not shake his faith in the system; S.H.I.E.L.D. kept secrets for a reason. He had to trust in that; there was no way he could do anything else.

“Sacrifice is part of the job,” Phil insisted. He would die, again and again, for S.H.I.E.L.D.’s cause. However, Raina questioned why S.H.I.E.L.D. would even keep details of his own death from him, it gave him pause and gave a voice to his curiosity. To rub it in, she even called S.H.I.E.L.D. his only family since he'd lost both of his parents.

_“Do you miss hearing her play? She cried for days after S.H.I.E.L.D. told her you were dead.”_

How did Raina know this about him, that he had one great love in life: a cellist whom he’d been in a long-distance relationship with…before he… He loved the woman; she loved him. They built dreams together. Phil loved the way her slender arms moved when she held the bow and played the cello. He loved hearing her play, especially - oh, what was the name of the piece – Bach’s 2nd Cello Suite in D minor. The sounds that came from her cello! The piece was so dark and beautiful that it had brought tears to his eyes, even now. Oh, how she could make such an instrument sing.

He never had a chance to say goodbye to his love, and now he wasn’t sure if he wanted to, either. How long had it been since he’d seen her, anyway? So much could have changed by then; maybe she was in a relationship with someone else now. Who was he to intrude upon her life like that? That was impossible; S.H.I.E.L.D. couldn't have lied to them both. There was just no way.

But when Raina brought up Tahiti, he automatically described it as a magical place, like he always did.

And he needed to know why.

So it was back in the machine again. He could see it all; he was in a beach, at first, then the faces of the attendants kept changing and so did the beach until finally, he found himself inside a dark operating room where Dr. Streiten and a lady were watching over him as he suffered.

“He’s drifting.”  
“Don’t.”  
“Listen to him.”  
“Stop.”  
“Director Fury ordered this.”  
“This is wrong!”

The unending pain; it was worse than torture. 'Hell' wouldn’t accurately capture the sensation. Why did the doctors revive him? Phil could have just died; S.H.I.E.L.D. could have let him go. He wasn’t any significant agent, just one of many. He could easily have been replaced.

But Director Nick Fury wanted him kept alive.

Why?

_“You weren’t operating on my heart. I know about Tahiti.”_

Dr. Streiten told Phil what he needed to know. After what happened in New York, he wasn’t actually dead for seconds, he’d been dead for _days_. Director Fury ‘moved Heaven and Earth’ just for him and he’d been operated on _seven times._ Phil had wanted to die; the doctors didn’t let him. It was a procedure that ‘no good doctor would ever allow,’ Streiten said.

Indeed, Phil thought. The dead should have been left alone and celebrated, not toyed with and manipulated. He should have (could have) guessed from what happened to Steve Rogers that S.H.I.E.L.D. would try to bring people back from the dead in whatever way they could. They could have left Steve alone; they could have left him for dead and let him slumber peacefully, but they chose not to. S.H.I.E.L.D. would probably explain that it was _for the greater good_ or some crap like that, and say that they were all more important alive than dead.

What about the Avengers, then? Did they know he was...back? He figured they didn't, but they would find out soon, and what next?

_"You’d lost your will to live. We tried to give it back.”_

More importantly: S.H.I.E.L.D. lied to him and gave him some bullshit, sunshines-and-rainbows memory about Tahiti. Fury, Hill, all of them. They lied to him. Why? So that he wouldn’t lose the will to live?

Newsflash: he’d started to lose the will to live now. His blind faith in S.H.I.E.L.D. had been crushed; he would have been better off dead and blissfully unaware that S.H.I.E.L.D. was capable of such cruel methods.

Phil Coulson couldn’t trust anyone here. He should just escape and actually go to Tahiti this time and live in seclusion there. The actual Tahiti was probably just as nice as the Tahiti of his fake memories.

Something kept him here, though: his team. They were the best things to happen to him since his death and subsequent resurrection. Skye, Fitz-Simmons, Grant, May...they'd come together to save him from Centipede. His death was a lie, but his team was real. He could trust them. The laughs and struggles they shared together were actual memories, and they were his to keep (unless Fury decided to erase _that_ from him, too). His team was a quirky bunch, but he was the one who picked them. He did it. And someday, he might even tell them what really happened in Tahiti.

No, he decided, Raina had been wrong. S.H.I.E.L.D. wasn’t his family; his team was.

And they were worth living and fighting for, in spite of everything.

Right?

**Author's Note:**

> Also doubles as a preview for James Barnes and Phil Coulson's future discussion in "A Captain, A Soldier and a Widow Walk into a Hospital."


End file.
